The present invention relates generally to garden implements and more particularly to an apparatus for bundling severed tree branches, shrubs and similar elongated elements.
It is well known to home owners and other real estate owners that, quite frequently, trees, shrubs and other plants have to be pruned or cut. When this happens, the owner is faced with the problem of disposing of the severed branches or other elongated elements. Often, the refuse collection personnel is under no obligation to remove such branches and the like unless they are properly prepared for collection, that is, bagged or tightly bundled. Yet, bundling of such elements, as advantageous as it is in many respects, presents a particularly difficult problem, since these elements are usually unwieldy, due to the presence of leaves, side branches or the like, so that it is not easy to place tying strings around a plurality of such elongated elements and to tighten such strings prior to tying.
A similar problem has been previously encountered in agriculture in connection with the formation of shocks from cereal grass and similar stalks, as evidenced, for instance, by the U.S. Pat. Nos. 521,088; 906,147; 1,000,533; 1,005,994; and 1,462,817. However, it has been established that the arrangements of these patents, as advantageous as they may be for forming shocks, are not suited for use for bundling severed branches and similar garden debris or the like, in that they require the placement of the elongated element, such as a rope, which performs the actual compression, all the way around the plurality of elongated elements to be bundled. This may be accomplished rather easily when such elongated elements are cereal grass stalks. However, this task would be very difficult if not impossible to accomplish in connection with a plurality of severed branches and similar garden debris, because of the generally irregular shapes of such elements to be bundled. Moreover, more often than not, where the known bundling arrangements include bundling members having free ends which are to be tied or otherwise connected to a support, the connecting locations are situated at very inconvenient or difficult to reach places.
Moreover, there are already known various constructions of brakes, among them ratchet-type or other one-way or freewheeling type brakes. One brake construction which employs a braking belt that is wrapped about a rotatable braking drum is disclosed in the U.S. Pat. No. 1,180,045. However, this brake is not a one-way brake; rather, it has to be actuated by the operator whenever it is desired to apply or release such a brake. Therefore, a brake of this type is not suited for use in applications where a freewheeling braking action is called for.